


Family Relationships - [Challengers S02W01]

by Anaccountforfurrythings, OldAmsterdam, TheCauldronDiscord, Zacatigy



Series: Challengers - Season 2 [1]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Family, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 10:48:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15459678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaccountforfurrythings/pseuds/Anaccountforfurrythings, https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldAmsterdam/pseuds/OldAmsterdam, https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCauldronDiscord/pseuds/TheCauldronDiscord, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zacatigy/pseuds/Zacatigy
Summary: A compilation of entries for Season 2 Week 1 ofthe Cauldron Discord's Challengers event, in which participants must write a snippet or oneshot corresponding to a given thematic prompt.The theme:Family Relationships.





	1. Untitled - by @Miscellaneous Uncertainties#3263

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** @Miscellaneous Uncertainties#3263 - [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zacatigy), [Spacebattles](https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/zacatigy.389503/)
> 
>  **Focus:** Nicolas and Rose/Facsimile (both OCs)
> 
>  **Author Notes:**  
>  Warnings: Child abuse, spousal abuse, drug abuse, cursing and b-slur, generally really toxic and unhealthy relationships all around.

Pa and Rose were screaming at each other in the big room again. I was under the blankets, my hands grasping and messing up how ma had made the sheets all neat when she had tucked me in, as I pretended to sleep. Muggy heat drifted in through the window over the shouting, the air conditioner silent after the lights had stopped turning on last week and pa hadn’t said anything about it. Rose had yelled at him then too, worse than she had yelled any time in the month before. Then she had been gone for two days and I had had to walk to school alone and ma hadn’t been happy about that, though she never said nothing. I had to do my homework by the light from the streetlights outside the whole time too, and afterwards my eyes hurt. The streetlights were lit now, dim light shining through the window.

I couldn’t hear the words, but I didn’t think Rose was arguing about her girlfriends again, and it wasn’t her being home late ‘cause her and pa had yelled about that last night and this was louder than that. I didn’t like the idea of pa and Rose getting angrier - I didn’t want the neighbors to start hitting the walls and ceiling again. Last time dust and plaster had fallen on me and I had coughed so much that I had started puking and as ma tried to help me to the bathroom they started arguing worse over whose fault it was. 

There was a dull thing stuck in the back of my head like a rock and my eyes felt like they had weights attached, but those didn’t glow of the bedside clock change any faster. Why couldn’t Rose just finish yelling now, so she could storm into our room now and pretend to be sorry she woke me up? She had to walk me to school tomorrow before she went to her college; I had the 4th grade musical and had to be there right on time or else Amanda and Emmanuel would think I was skipping out and they wouldn’t have lunch with me.

It was actually fun being with my sister when we were just walking and when she wasn’t with Hannah or locking our room and not letting me in even when the smoke started to come out from under the door and left the room smelling like the corner of Bergen and Franklin for days. She was all nice and cool and got me ice cream when she knew ma and pa weren’t counting the dollars she earned. Not after nights like tonight though. Though Rose never raised a hand like pa did, she was just as good at throwing whatever stuff she was mad about at anyone and everyone around. 

If they stopped fighting that ment me and ma wouldn’t have to deal with nothin’ tomorrow either. My back still hurt. I knew it was for our own good, but that didn’t stop it from stinging none, or from staying stinging forever, 

There was a shout from the outside that had me covering my ears as they rang, followed by a crash of glass and the slamming of boots. Ma didn’t like when Rose and pa wore their boots in, told me they were carrying in the disease and violence from outside when they did, though she never said nothin’ to them. But then the door swung open hard enough I heard it hit the other wall, and a beam of light hurt my eyes from where I had been pretending they were shut. 

When I could see again the door was slammed shut and Rose was leaning against it, while Rose was dragging a chair over to the door, and Rose was holding pa’s box flashlight while leaning over my bed to shake me awake.

I blinked.

“Common squirt,” she said, calling me squirt instead of Nicolas again. I could hear her trying to use the voice she used when she was teasing me, but it didn’t work when her shoulders were shaking so much. “Grab what you can carry, we’re getting out of here.”

I blinked again, and watched as the Rose leaning against the door, ignoring the pounding that came from outside, grabbed the chair from the Rose who had been holding the chair, and then  _ rippled _ like that video of moving lava online and spread over the chair and door, until all that remained was like a dull brown sheet of rock that wedged the two together. 

“Rose, what?” I began, before she ripped away the blinked and started throwing clothes from her and my dressers on top. 

“Shut up,” Rose’s voice was cold and short, “I’m taking you out of this shithole. Shove whatever you can in your backpack and stay fucking quiet.”

I had almost finished scrabbling out of bed and looking for my bag when I noticed I was doing what she had said. I couldn’t stop staring at my hands as they moved, feeling the stone in my head and the pain on my back. What would ma say, to me if not to the others? What would pa do if I left? What would pa do when he got through the door?

I tried packing faster. I reached for my legend figure but one of the Roses slapped it out of my hands, yelled about what little time we had and that she couldn’t believe I was thinking about toys or that I was thinking at all. Behind us, another Rose was stuffing her makeup kit into the big purse that she never used except when no one would see her because she said it wasn’t in anymore. When she wasn’t looking, I put my legend figure in my bag anyways. 

Everything was happening so quickly. I watched one Rose let a dull brown figure pull itself out of herself, which quickly became a new Rose so much so that even I couldn’t tell in the dim streetlight that came through my window. I could ask what had happened. I should ask what happened, even as the Roses swirled around me collecting things. I didn’t-

A louder slam than all those preceding it together wracked the door. It sounded like metal on wood. I remembered the sound from when pa had broken the door handle and lock to me and Rose’s room with the bat. All three Roses shot up, looked to the door with the same stillness in the way they stood. 

In the seconds before the second crash of metal and wood came, the Roses kicked into motion, wrapping and tying and swinging their bags over their shoulders. She closed mine too, even though I wasn’t finished, smacking me with an off hand as I tried to complain and telling me to put my bag on. I could feel myself go shock still, ice in my bones, as she carried on without missing a beat. I felt my hands pull the backpack straps over my shoulders. 

The Rose that had been piling clothes on my blanket pulled each of the corners up until they were bundled in the cloth. Then her hands became molten like the old Rose had at the door, moving and shaping around the twisted cloth. When she stepped away the cloth was closed by rock, and the Rose didn’t have hands anymore. 

She then turned and smashed her hands into the lock that kept the window from opening more than a third. Her arm and the lock shattered, and she stopped being Rose anymore as the rest of her began to melt away. The brown figure shoved the window up, and then slumped out of it. 

I wasn’t able to hold in my gasp, almost expecting to hear her shatter moments later. 

Instead, I was pulled away from the sight of the Rose now holding the clothing blanket ooze out a new figure by the gut feeling of gravity being in a different direction and cold rods around me. My heart caught in my throat, as I looked around before I found Rose holding me as if it was easy and not even complaining like she always did when she let me have a piggyback ride. I forced myself to swallow my heart back into my chest as I looked closer at the Rose carrying me. Looked at how she wasn’t Rose.

The figure’s skin looked like what you see when you look at the rocks in central park really close, the color more like paint than skin. It’s hold was stiff and cold and it hurt as it rubbed against my back, but even then I could feel the body bend like a body was supposed to, and hear a heartbeat echo through as my head and body were pressed close to her. Her eyes moved slow and steady instead of in short dashes, and didn’t shrink even when the flashlight beam arced across the room. It’s chest rose and fell, but each breath was the same. 

It froze as another hit sounded against the door. I could hear a crack, like that of rock instead of the wood and metal from before, the sound you heard when you threw rocks onto the other rocks that made up the sides of the piers.

“Hold on tight Nico,” I heard my not-Rose say, and it was almost warm.

I held my backpack’s straps as tight as I could, held my not-Rose’s arms tighter. I felt my stomach flop anyways as I moved faster than I had been prepared to in seconds. My voice rose as we began to free fall, my eyes sealed tight - and then we were stable and moving easily. 

Peaking outwards, I saw more of the rocky substance the not-Rose’s had created before, stuck in a path below the window, outward portions almost looking like the handholds at the rock climbing places. With one arm around me, not-Rose was climbing down one handhold at a time with steady ease. Only five handholds down, another Rose swung over the windowsill, carrying the third Rose and the bundle of clothes in her arms, along with the out purse. 

The steady climb down was broken by another feeling of free falling, and then a heavy impact of ground. After clearing my head, I could see the rock only went halfway down the side of the apartment, to just over the first floor. The other Roses soon followed suit. The carried Rose got down, and after a breath, all three ran, my not-Rose still carrying me in her arms. 

It was minutes before they even slowed down, before I felt my heart go slow enough to try to ask what was going on. We had gotten to Hannah’s house before they had given me an answer. 

As intricate and indented wooden door of the whitestone apartment swung open to reveal a Hannah, eyes droopy and red and wearing something ma would never have approved of, I couldn’t unstick the catch in my throat. Couldn’t forget the idea of ma alone with pa after today. Couldn’t stop the images of what pa would do when we got back. 

\---

Hannah’s house smelled like smoke and dust and the corner of Bergen and Franklin. Rose had taken me here before, when she knew pa wouldn’t notice, left me downstairs why she stayed with her girlfriend, only taking me back after night fell and telling pa there had been an afterschool event or something. Pa had never bought it, but it was never one of their louder screaming matches. Ma had never bought Rose’s story neither, but she never said anything to Rose or pa. 

Rose had launched right into, ugh,  _ kissing _ and telling the barely present Hannah how everything had gone wrong. That things were  _ different _ now, said as she pulled one of the not-Roses towards her at the hip, and how the two of them had desperately needed a place to stay. Hannah had gotten a look on her face that I hated because it wasn’t nice at all, and waved the two of us inside before slamming and locking all three locks on the big wooden door. 

The last not-Rose had guided me to the ratty couch that should have been way nicer if we hadn’t walked through garbage bags to get to it. I tried to find a place between the burn marks and stains. 

not-Rose told me to unpack and relax and that she wouldn’t let anyone take me back there. She said that before swaying back to where the Roses and Hannah were talking, before all for headed upstairs. The door slammed behind them, and stayed that way.

I didn’t unpack, even though not-Rose had told me too. I would have taken my shoes off, but I didn’t think they could have made the coch any worse. I pulled my legs in, held them close, arms around my legs and holding tight onto the straps of my backpack. 

Ma and pa hadn’t left my mind. Rose had only left the room. The room grew on me like mold, crawling around me until I could feel it pressing me under water that wasn’t there. There was a sour smell, but it mixed with a feeling of dust in every breath. I tried breathing through the rough cloth of my bag, tried to hold down my coughs or let them out all at once so I wasn’t coughing all the time. My throat felt raw.  

I tried to ignore the shouting from upstarts too.

The shouts had been quiet, at first, merely sounding through the wood and cement floors. It hadn’t sounded like the noise was right next to your ear, when the walls were old and made of plaster. It didn’t sound like Rose’s fights with pa either. I only heard it here at Hannah’s house, or from the walls of other apartments at home.

What would ma think, if she saw where Rose had ran to? What would pa do?

Heat and itching covered my skin. I couldn’t leave, not without Rose. I wouldn’t be able to find my way back either. 

Instead, I pulled my legs in closer, and lay to the side against the stains and burn marks. Coughing out my lungs, the clutter and sour smell, and the muffled yells from upstairs followed me as my eyes finally forced themselves closed.

\---

My eyes were still sore when the yelling rose in pitch, no longer muffled by the floor above. 

“Fucking bitch!” I heard shouted in Rose’s voice, as feet pounded down the stairs. She was alone this time. She only had one of the bags, now, and her purse on her shoulder. She tried to wrench the door open, only for it to jostle the locks. Shaking hands set to working the latches. I almost waited, said nothing - Almost sat stunned. Then the room returned to my sight, surrounding me and flipping my stomach. 

“Rose” I squealed out, blinking sleep that hadn’t collected out of my eyes. There was still only the dim light of the streetlights outside. Rose’s head turned like a top, then got stuck like it was frozen as she looked at me. 

“-hit” I heard her curse under her breath as she rushed over and began collecting me, “we can’t stay here squirt.” I didn’t complain. It  _ was _ Rose too, the skin had all those holes and the little hairs on it. Her eyes were red and puffy and darted around. 

“Common, get up, Rose whispered, her breath moving heavy like a horse. I still had everything in my bag so I just stood up, and she pulled me towards the door without noticing. The locks took longer than they could have, as Rose’s fingers slipped and fumbled. Closer to the stairs now, I could hear the muffled screams from upstairs, like anger, like fear, without words.

Rose swung the door wide open, and pulled me outside. The black sky held only the blinking lights of a plane, moon and the stars hiding, as I was pulled running through the streets again. 

\---

The chain mart glowed with electric and neon light. We walked through the empty gas station to the isolated building, to the inviting warmth glass windows that faced the pumps. Rose dragged me along behind her. She had told me that she hadn’t had time to grab dinner at home, or at Hannah’s, that we would be hungry tomorrow. She hadn’t waited for an answer. I hadn’t given one. 

The creases under my eyes felt like they had begun to dig into my skin, and rock of dullness behind my head hadn’t given up either. 

Before I could see the display behind the window, Rose pulled me to the side. 

“Act natural, ok. Don’t get surprised and do what I say.” She said, sparing a look through the window. I could see the older boy in an apron with the store’s logo as I peaked over Rose’s shoulder. He was absently picking at his nails as his head bobbed the the earphones almost hidden underneath the mess of curls on his head. I looked back to Rose, as my eyebrows creased.

“Just… Pretend to look at the magazines or something.” she said. Her shoulders were shaking, but I almost hadn’t noticed it. Not like after the talk with pa earlier, or after she pulled me from Hannah’s house. I shivered as a breeze of cool broke the humidity of the night.

Standing up straighter, Rose wiped out the creases from her shirt, before walking into the store with a sway of her hips and a ding from the automatic door. Only waiting a moment I followed her in, before the doors could close. She walked in that weird way I had only seen her do around Hannah or her other girlfriends, as she walked to the clerk.

I went to the magazines, like Rose had said, trying to figure out which to pick up. I picked up the one with a car on the front and absolutely no one smiling too wide or without clothes. I could hear ma whisper about those magazines under her breath. I opened the magazine to a page in the middle, something with a picture of a mountain, so that I could look over the top of the book at Rose.

It looked like she and the boy were talking, and he had come out from behind the counter where the older kids would buy things, and was now leaning against the wall instead. He was smiling a big full grin, his headphones on his shoulders now. Rose was smiling too, and she was acting like she did with Hannah. Her foot was also shifting on the ground and her fists were clasped tightly against her side. Her shoulders still shook. 

I tried my best not to listen, just like when she was with Hannah. Just like when she was with pa. 

With a look and a word she stepped up to him. He seemed to reach out, a earphone is his hand. Then Rose stopped, and a figure reached out in her stead. The boy barely let out a scream before the figure pinned him to the wall, barely beginning to look like Rose before it began to shift and melt. A misshapen hand rached towards his mouth, covering it without covering his nose, as the rest of the figure surged around him and onto the wall. 

I could see the brown rock of the figure and molds they created better now, with buzzing lights built into the ceiling over the counter. It looked like when the surface of the broken bricks around the construction projects, as it dried. The rock that had been a not-Rose surrounded the boy, connecting to the wall on both sides behind him. Even as his shoulders and head almost jerked, the rock barely budged. His eyes were wide now, his nostrils flaring, but all that could be heard were muffled grunts through the rock that kept his mouth shut. 

“Fucking move Squirt” I heard Rose shout, and I blinked as I saw she was no longer next to the boy but behind the counter instead. Her face looked like it was twisted, like she was sick, and her shoulders had tremors like an earthquake. I blinked again as two more of her were also moving to different isles of the store. “Grab as much food as you can stuff into your bag. Real food, not candy or some junk.” As she talked she fumbled with the register behind the counter. After nothing happened she hissed and a new not-Rose pulled itself out of her, slamming a fist into the register after only a moment to form.

I didn’t bother picking up the magazine that had fallen to floor. I tried not to think of what ma wouldn’t have said about littering and stealing, about what pa would have done, as I tried to figure out what Rose would want me to take from the shelves. I did my best to forget the boy by the counter, not to see his the whites of his wide eyes, not to hear the muffled shouts that still echoed through the store. 

My heart pounded in my ears and the creases under my eyes pressed into my brain and my legs felt like they were going to fall off. I looked at the isle anyways, tried to decide what was the best food anyways, like Rose had told me. I stuffed Cereal, bread, chocolate, milk - anything that I had eaten and felt less hungry afterwards - into my bag, held by pulling up the bottom of my shirt when there wasn’t any more room in the bag. 

I could hear Rose by the sounds of paper and the ding of the register and the curses, hear the not-Roses as they shifted and grabbed items off of the other shelves. My arms hurt and I didn’t have more arms to hold more things but I wouldn’t be found dallying, would do what she had said. 

My heart skipped a beat when a water bottle was grabbed out from where I was trying to nudge it off the shelf with my chin. My breath caught in my throat as the pain from my back stung again, until I saw that it was Rose - no her skin was rough not smooth - that was holding the bottle. Even then I didn’t let the breath go as she grabbed some of the things from my arms, lungs held until she had put the things in the green plastic shopping basket at her side and looked away. 

“Common Nico,” The not-Rose said without shifting tone, her voice having none of the shaking that had been in Rose’s before we got into the store. I nodded, even though the not-Rose was already turned and walking away. I raced to follow her, to follow the sparing glance that Rose cast over her shoulder as she left the building. She caught my eyes, and with a half smile she jerked her head out. The not-Roses followed, hands holding bulging plastic bags.

I tried my best to follow. 

\---

There had been a rock under my back all night, and it felt like the imprint hadn’t left. The grass had been cool, but nowhere thick enough to be comfortable even after a not-Rose had broken the clasp on the blanket bag to lie down on. 

Rose had told me that she had friends she could ask, but that they were too far away. The next time I had asked she had they would have been asleep, and that we would have bothered them. The third time I had asked, she hadn’t answered, her breathing even and her eyes closed. 

I hadn’t moved when I had felt the rock, with as close as Rose had been. I had listened to her breathe as the sky began to brighten. Rose hadn’t tucked me in, not like ma had. I hadn’t noticed when my eyes had shut. 

My eyes had shot open when my shoulders were shook, and all at once I heard the quiet bustle of footsteps and voices just receding into the background, surrounded only by the light sounds of bird calls, a passing car. I could see Rose, see the few people in the park behind her, staring, or worse looking away. Someone was talking worriedly on the phone, her eyes and brow creased.

Rose had pushed me off the blanket after her had told me to wake up, after she had asked if I was ok. A new figure pulled itself out of Rose, to which the people watching gasped, followed by two more, and together tied and sealed the blanket bag back up and grabbed the basket of food. Then the Rose who still had hands grasped mine, and then we were moving again. 

I didn’t say how my legs felt like they had needles in them, but made of darkness instead of metal, or say anything about the plastic bag that had been left behind. I hadn’t said anything about the bag of clothing that she had taken upstairs at Hannah’s house and not come down with. I couldn’t get the woman from the park, with the phone held to her ear, out of my head. The creased brown, the hushed words to the phone. 

Pa had said, after some of the arguments with Rose, after my back began hurting again and ma stayed saying nothin’, that we weren’t to tell anyone, ever. His voice had been heavy, and he had only said it once over the whole of a night. 

The woman with the phone gave me goosebumps. 

I didn’t let out a shout, this time, when the not-Rose pulled me into the alley without warning, stowing the two of us most of the way behind a dumpster. Her hands were solid and cool like skin wasn’t, but it still wrapped around me like Rose used to before the yelling with pa had gotten worse. 

Across the alley, I saw the Rose with darting eyes and smooth skin sink down, a finger to her lips. With the other hand, she pointed out f the alley. I could hear the rumble of an engine, the sound of tires on the street. No one breathed, though the not-Roses never did. Finally, a black van pulled into view from where I was stowed behind the dumpster. The windows were tinted, but the letters P-R-T were written on the side.

The van stopped, engines on, just beyond the alley. For minutes Rose and the not-Rose’s were still, waiting for the van to finish whatever it had stalled for and move on. 

It didn’t. 

I saw Rose flinch, when the door of the van was flung open and a officer stepped out. Head to toe not a single inch was left uncovered by a thick black cloth, except for the head with it’s mirrored covering. The officer held a baton in one hand, a small rectangle in the other. 

The next officer was holding a gun with a nozzle and a long cord that linked to their backpack. 

“Come out with your hands raised,” the officer shouted, clearer through the layers of cloth and mask, but muffled enough I was unable to hear an accent or if they were a boy or girl. 

“Shit,” Rose said, getting up and running almost as fast as she had after leaving home. The not-Rose that had covered me hoisted me up and followed suit.

“Suspected unidentified cape found, Master qualities, child hostage present,” the figure with the gun said, shoving the other officer to the side and raising the gun even as they began talking, “moving to apprehend.”

Rose didn’t make it halfway down the alley before the white foam caught her, shouting and yelling and shaking as it expanded to cover her legs and hips. The not-Roses barely made it that far. As my not-Rose fell, she wrapped her arms around me, twisted as if to shield me from the ground. 

“Shhhh, Nico,” I heard her whisper as the foam covered our torsos, “everything will be ok. We’ll figure this out.”

I felt her arms wrap around me as the foam covered our heads, cutting off Rose’s yells and cries.

\---

The precinct wasn’t like the police one I had had to sit in when ma and pa had been brought in last time. The PRT had metal benches instead of wooden ones, and that time it had been pa shouting behind the closed door instead of Rose. Because Rose was in the room with the officers and the suit lady, it meant she wasn’t out here this time, holding my hand like she used to, like the not-Roses had. 

The officers hadn’t let one of the not-Roses stay with me, or for Rose to make any at all after the old ones had crumbled. The bench was really wide, even if I had taken off my back to put in the space next to me. I could have lay down across it, could feel it pull at me to do just that. 

I could hear ma talking about how rude it was to take up a whole bench, out of pa and Rose’s hering. I decided not to lie down.

There had been a man in a suit who had talked to me too, before the yelling in Rose’s room had gotten louder. They had asked me question after question and my eyes were drooping and the stone im my head felt like it took up my whole brain now, but I answered a lot of them like I was supposed to, not saying anything bad. That my sister had taken me out after she talked with my pa, and that we were going to a friend’s house. 

A lot of questions I didn’t say anything too. 

The man in the suit had left after I hadn’t said anything and he hadn’t said anything and the short hand had gone all the way around the clock. The long hand had moved a lot since then, though often I blinked and it had shifted again. 

There and never been less than ten people in the lobby, either the officers in their black gear, or someone in a suit running from the entrance to a door, but there weren’t many other than the officers who stayed for more than a moment or two. The people seemed to blur about more than walk, as my eyelids tried telling me what to do. The clock’s long hand had moved again, to reach another of the numberless marks. 

I didn’t hear Rose yelling anymore when my eyes opened again. Instead sobs pushed themselves through the walls and into my ears and I stopped. Rose hadn’t cried on the nights when my back had hurt but hers should have felt worse, didn’t cry when pa broke the door handle, or after the time she had come home alone when she had said she would have a friend over. 

I heard her, and felt everything deep inside crumble away and leave a pit and I couldn’t see into. I could feel a well, filling, overflowing until it reached my eyes and my breath and-

My heart stopped entirely, cold like the ice I felt shoot into my brain, keeping my eyes open wider than I could bear. The only tears I felt come were as the wind from the door to the lobby opening dried my eyes. As my breath caught I felt my throat close and my lungs shrivel and my stomach die.

The door to the precinct was softly closed by ma as she stood behind pa. Ma’s eyes darted the moment she turned, and found me immediately. Ma stayed silent.

There was no air inside me and it burned. I could feel my skin crawl, the needles returning but this time they were like fire instead of ice. My legs wanted to get up and run like they had never before even when they felt like lead. My arms wanted to flail and shake and hit even as they grasped the straps of my backpack unmoving. 

Rose’s cries from the walls behind me grew clearer, and pa turned his head to look. Pa’s eyes found mine and his brow creased and my vision was starting to fog around the edges.

Pa started walking forwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author Notes:**  
>  Ok, ending there. Basically, Nicolas is taken by a really traumatized and unstable sister (maybe between 16 and 20) who is a parahuman, and the two flee the house of their abusive parents. Nico doesn’t really want to go, but as he goes through all of these unwanted motions of a sister who is loving but messed up in a lot of ways, the thoughts of his parents start creeping back in. Then, after being captured by PRT for attacking a kid and robbing a store, the dots are connected and their parents are called. Seeing them walk in, the fact that he was distant from them crashes down on nico, and everything breaks down. 
> 
> There’s a lot of things I’m not so sure about, especially surrounding Rose, nico, and all the relationships. Also, this could be a trigger event, but it also doesn’t have to be. It would fit though.


	2. Untitled - by @Anaccountforfurrythings#0434

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** @Anaccountforfurrythings#0434 - [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anaccountforfurrythings), [Spacebattles](https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/anaccountforfurrythings.353164/)
> 
>  **Focus:** Scion and Eden

Sustenance

Acknowledgement; Approach

Inquiry; Cleanliness

Exasperation

Sterilize

Refusal

Denial

Resignation; Compliance

Satisfaction

Inquiry; Sustenance

Vegetation

Disgust

Consume

Refusal

Scarcity

Irrelevant

Annoyance; Vacate

Annoyance; Departure

Regret

Regret


	3. Untitled - by @Sharks#6210

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** @Sharks#6210 - [Spacebattles](https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/goodgirllizzy.321348/)
> 
>  **Focus:** OC (with a guest appearance)

Olivia sat on the edge of her house, and cried. She was already missing her Daddy, the only person she'd ever really known after her mother abandoned her. Her Daddy...

She looked over the small village where she lived, and watched as the flames flickered over the building's wooden roofs, and the heroes patrolled. Her Daddy was one of those who couldn't be found, one of the many who'd vanished after the Slaughterhouse Nine had hit the area. He'd said he would defend her from one of the baddies... she wasn't sure which. It was a woman, as tall as Mommy had been, but she was coloured strangely, like one of her dolls. The memory of those dolls, and their burnt remains, set her crying again, and she sat there, unmoving. Her house was burnt to ashes, and her Daddy hadn’t ever mentioned any family besides her Mommy.

She’d hidden in a basement, and cried. She’d been doing a lot of that lately. It wasn’t until the morning that she got out, sniffed out by one of the heroes. She watched them, as ambulances took away the hurt. Old Mrs. Olinder was one of them. She owned one of the candy stores down the street, one of Oliva’s favourite places. Her Daddy took her there, if she was good, and let her choose one treat. Mrs. Olinder always gave her another one and a wink, telling her not to tell her Daddy.

Olivia watched as she was loaded into the ambulance, watched as the stump where her leg was torn bleed some more. She’d been watching this all morning, and it still didn’t seem normal. She kept waiting for her Daddy to wake up from the scary dream, to hug her and tell her that everything would be all right. One of the heroes had tried to hug her, before, tried to hide her from the town. But it wasn’t right. He wasn’t Daddy. And he’d never be Daddy.

Olivia couldn’t see well through her tears. So she was surprised when someone sat next to her, a girl like her. She looked older, and her blonde hair fell behind her back. Olivia stared at her, slightly. The girl looked like a Disney Princess, pretty and wearing a pretty dress. She reached out to touch the girl’s ringlets, and she reacted as if she’d just noticed Olivia was there. Her smile was pretty too, Olivia noticed.

“Hello!”

Olivia blinked. Was she talking to her? The girl smiled wider, shifting to face Olivia. Olivia stared at her. She seemed so… happy.

“Are you okay? Do you need help?”

 The girl frowned, and Olivia felt tears coming on again. Before she could start sobbing, though, she felt the girl’s arms wrap around her, and her breath caught. A hug. A warm hug. It wasn’t her Daddy’s arms, but she could close her eyes and imagine. That brought the tears on full-force, and she cried as the other girl patted her back.

 It took her awhile to calm down, and the other girl finally let go. She said something, and Olivia realised that she’d asked her a question. Struggling to find her voice, Olivia replied.

 “M-My Daddy. He’s missing.”

 The other girl frowned. Olivia started tearing up again, but stopped as the other girl looked at her.

 “Do you want help finding him?”

 Olivia was nodding before she even knew, and the other girl smiled again. Lifting her onto her shoulders, the other girl began to walk out of town.

 “Come on. I’m sure we’ll find your Daddy again, and I know that once we do, you two will be _inseparable_.”

 Olivia smiled, hugging the head of the blonde girl. She was gonna find her Daddy!

 “By the way,” said the girl, “what’s your name?”

 “...Olivia.” Olivia replied, still hugging tight. “What’s yours?”

 The other girl took a moment to reply, but squeezed Olivia’s legs and smiled.

 “Riley.”


	4. Adrift - by @Alice [Team Damsel]#2424

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Author:** @Alice [Team Damsel]#2424 - [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldAmsterdam), [Spacebattles](https://forums.spacebattles.com/members/old-amsterdam.385010/)
> 
> **Focus:** Missy Biron / Vista

I stood outside my house, hanging back at the curb by the mailbox as my escort drove away.  I watched the unmarked black SUV take a turn at the end of the block, wishing that I was still inside with the PRT soldiers as they headed back to HQ.  At least then I could enjoy the silence, or even put up with Dennis's crude jokes if he was staying late. Anywhere but here....

But here was home and home was where I was supposed to be.  I sighed, pulling my school backpack up a little higher, and began the trudge forward.  I could've lengthened the distance, but that would've just been delaying the inevitable.  As my sneaker reached the first step to ascend the porch I could already hear the angry voices from inside, eliciting another sigh to pass from my lips.  Home. Yeah. Whatever.

Slowly, carefully, I inserted my house key into the knob, unlocking the door before I methodically replaced it into the pouch on my backpack.  Steeling myself, I swung upon the door, letting it click shut behind me before locking it as my parent's voices dimmed momentarily. Probably business as usual, it would just take a few before they got back to it.  Again.

Like always.

“Homework,” I called, setting up the stairs without hesitation.  If they were already like this there wasn't anything I could hope to do to stop it.  Not like the criminals in the city. I could stop those at least. Digging out my earbuds, I slipped them into my ears and connected to my mobile.

Something warm.  Yeah. Something cute and cuddly, like kittens or the fluffy white clouds that I sometimes considered bringing down to my hands.  Not that I knew if I could. They were probably too far away to touch. Too far away to do anything with. Just like my parents.

A tear slipped past, splashing down on my math textbook.  This wasn't what family was supposed to be like, was it? Fighting and arguing and breaking things.  The other Wards felt more like family, more like a home, than this did anymore.

If only I could go home....


End file.
